Kisha Patel

Emily Dickinson

Topic: Emily Dickinson is one of the most original 19th century american poets.

Thesis: Emily Dickinson is one of the most orginal 19th century american poets cause she explored spirtuality, created diverse poetry, and used metaphors, capitalization, rhyming meter and dashes in a effective innovative style.

Source 1: (web)
Merriman, C.D. "The Literature Network." www.online-literature.com/dickinson/ The Literature Network, 2006. Web. 26 Apr 2010.

1. among ranks of poets like Walt Whitman
2. considered one of the most original 19th Century American poets.
3. known for use of rhyming meter
4. use of dashes
5. use of random capitalization
6. creative use of metaphor
7. Questioned the puritanical background of her Calvinist family and soulfully explored her own spirituality in poetry
8. avoided romantic style
9. used imagery
10. sometimes her poems were witty
11. sometimes frank
12. sometimes sad
13. sometimes joyous
14. her sophistication is shown through her poetry
15. she has influenced many poets into the 21st century
16. she studied early literature and works in latin at a young age
17. Samuel Bowles (a friend of her brothers) published her poems in Springfield Republican
18. her work was also published in Atlantic Monthly
19. in 1864 a eye doctor told her never again to read or write
20. after she died, her sister published her work

Source 2: (web)
Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 4: Emily Dickinson." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. 27 Apr 2010 web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/dickinson.html

1. her work is often work with other traditions in literature
2. she read and enjoyed alot of work from the 17th century
3. she voices ideas of indepence and indivualism
4. its been said New Englanders are often said to be quiet and shy, and Dickinson never wrote long poems
5. influence by William Cullen Bryant and Henry Thoreau
6. Highly compressed, compact, shy of being exposed
7. she will say no more than she must
8. Her lyrics are her highly subjective. One-fifth of them begin with "I"
9. Use of poetic forms
10. she used many themes (examples below)
11. love; she loved and lost many times
12. nature; she was fasinated
13. faith; she looked for her own faith
14. doubt; she doubted her family's religon
15. pain and suffering; she talks about grief alot
16. death: talks a lot about the fact of human death
17. they is very little known about her life
18. dropped out of college
19. she recieved lots of encouragement from family and friends but didnt like to publish her poems
20. her poetry was for herself; she didnt feel the need to show it to others because she wrote for herself, not to become popular or rich.

Source 3: (online print)
GENOCCHIO, BENJAMIN. "Works That Speak Volumes in a 19th-Century Poet’s Voice ." New York Times (2007): n. pag. Web. 26 Apr 2010. <www.nytimes.com>

1. Her popularity grew with the poems she published and she along with Walt Whitman became the best poets of the 19th century
2. There are many biography's about her, but they arent important.
3. "But most of what we need to know about her is in the poems, which extol a love of nature, plants and gardening"
4. Poets often study the work of other poets like Dickinson, and like her, began to portray nature
5. Dickinson's poems are often converted to other types of art
6. Lesley Dill, makes sculptures that are based off Dickinson's poems
7. She has fractured, agonized-looking figure made of painted bronze, with a white ribbon emerging from one foot, the ribbon reads, “Dust is the only secret,” the opening line from one of Dickinson’s death-oriented poems.
8. Peter Edlund’s antique-looking oil paintings echo scenes from Dickinson’s poems, some relating to plants in the gardens, others to animals
9. Francis Cape’s “The Angle of a Landscape” which takes its title from the first line of a poem by Dickinson in which she describes the world visible from her bedroom. Mr. Francis has created a secluded, screened space in the gallery in imitation of a room where Dickinson slept, looked out the window and possibly sat down at a desk to write the poem.
10. Tacy Levy’s has hundreds of pieces of nylon thread tufts attached to a window to filter and reflect the soft afternoon sunlight. It uses a line from a Dickinson poem about sunsets as a launch pad
11. Marina Zurkow’s sculptures hanging from the ceiling show Dickinson-inspired garden scenes
12. This shows that Dickinson was very influential to various people
13. She wrote diverse poems that were about many different things poeple could relate too
14. she had a lot of poems about gardens
15. she also had a lot of poems about death
16. these all helped artists create moods within their own fields
17. her inspiration is given to other poets, artists, sculpturers, painters, composers, and everyday people who read her work
18. all her poetry has underlying connection and meaning just like the artist's works
19. she shows that her words can be protrayed various different ways, depending on who is reading them and in what context
20. she was a very influential being from the 19th century to the 21st, and more to come

Source 4: (online print)
Shackford, Martha Hale. "The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." Atlantic January 1913: n. pag. Web. 26 Apr 2010. <www.theatlantic.com>.

1. every poet is unique
2. every poet has a different way of conveying thoughts and feelings
3. Dickinson wrote strong sharp poems
4. her writing overthrew the reader
5. she strongly criticized spirituality
6. she was one of the most original writers of all time
7. critics may complain that her work isn't justified in questioning spirituality
8. most of her work is written in short measures
9. the readers of her work must be intelligent to understand the meaning of her words and punctuation
10. her crazy rhythm shows poetic meaning in only a way that she could create
11. she has such diverse topics of poetry
12. upon reading a poem a reader may feel various emotions such as insight, confusion, anger, faith, questions, or just be content
13. her poems are very stimulating for examination
14. she had a lot of creative energy
15. to her, poetry meant expressing vital meanings and feelings
16. she learns how to talk about all her feelings without giving herself a label
17. she has grim poems about death, and beautiful joyous poems about gardens
18. she love of mystery and symbolism lead her to writing such strong pieces
19. she had the most unique way of capturing how she felt and how you felt into one
20. she is one of the most powerful poets of all time and someone who deserves much appreciation and less criticism for her beliefs.

EXTRA NOTES:
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Dickinson’s Poetry.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 22 Apr. 2010.

1. unlike Walt Whitman, she didnt write about her surrondings and what was going on in the world
2. Whitman and other poets around that time wrote poetry about the war.
3. Dickinson's poetry, show no insight of what time she was living in.
4. her use of punctuation like dashes and capitalization make her poetry stronger.
5. she wrote 1,776 poems
6. only 10 of 1,776 poems she published, the rest were published by her sister after she died
7. she fits a lot of meaning into a few words
8. her poems are hard to understand at first, but after you get them, your brain explodes with insight and thrill
9. she and Whitman are the 2 best poets of the 19th century
10. she usually wrote on 4 line stanzas (quatrains)
11. she had a ABCB ryhme scheme
12. she had alternations in the iambic meter
13. long dashes were used to interrupt the ryhme scheme
14. her poems are usually about her emotions tied in with how everyone else would feel too, in order to build a writer/reader connection
15. she usually wrote about emotional experiences she had in her life.
16. " her greatest achievement as a poet of inwardness is her brilliant diamond-hard language
17. her imagination lead her to crossing the bridge in the literature world.
18. she devoted a lot of her poetry to finding her faith and spirituality
19. her most popular theme was GOD, but unlike most poets, she was questioning and challenging him.
20. Dickinson used alot of literary terms like personification and metaphors.